Part 21 (1/2)

The man smiled luxuriously over this memory.

”We didn't hurt him none. Just returned him to his home. Hear about the label Honey Wiggin pinned on to him? 'Send us along one dozen as per sample.' Honey's quaint! Yes,” he drawled judicially, ”I'd be mad at that. But if you're making peace with a man because it's convenient why, your words must be pleasanter than if you really felt pleasant.” He took the paper from me, and read, sardonically: ”'Subsequent vandalisms...

wasted outlay.' I suppose they run this station from charity to the cattle. Saves the poor things walking so far to the other railroad 'Policy of friends.h.i.+p... genuine desire'--oh mouth-was.h.!.+” And, shaking his bold, clever head, he daintily flattened the letter upon the head of the agent. ”Tubercle,” said he (this was their name for the agent, who had told all of us about his lungs), ”it ain't your fault we saw their fine letter. They just intended you should give it out how they wouldn't bother us any more, and then we'd act square. The boys'll sit up late over this joke.”

Then they tramped to their horses and rode away. The spokesman had hit the vital point unerringly; for cow-punchers are shrewdly alive to frankness, and it often draws out the best that is in them; but its opposite affects them unfavorably; and I, needing sleep, sighed to think of their late sitting up over that joke. I walked to the board box painted ”Hotel Brunswick”--”hotel” in small italics and ”Brunswick” in enormous capitals, the N and the S wrong side up.

Here sat a girl outside the door, alone. Her face was broad, wholesome, and strong, and her eyes alert and sweet. As I came she met me with a challenging glance of good-will. Those women who journeyed along the line in the wake of payday to traffic with the men employed a stare well known; but this straight look seemed like the greeting of some pleasant young cowboy. In surprise I forgot to be civil, and stepped foolishly by her to see about supper and lodging.

At the threshold I perceived all lodging bespoken. On each of the four beds lay a coat or pistol or other article of dress, and I must lodge myself. There were my saddle-blankets--rather wet; or Lin McLean might ride in to-night on his way to Riverside; or perhaps down at the corrals I could find some other acquaintance whose habit of was.h.i.+ng I trusted and whose bed I might share. Failing these expedients, several empties stood idle upon a siding, and the box-like darkness of these freight-cars was timely. Nights were short now. Camping out, the dawn by three o'clock would flow like silver through the universe, and, sinking through my blankets, remorselessly pervade my buried hair and brain. But with clean straw in the bottom of an empty, I could sleep my fill until five or six. I decided for the empty, and opened the supper-room door, where the table was set for more than enough to include me; but the smell of the b.u.t.ter that awaited us drove me out of the Hotel Brunswick to spend the remaining minutes in the air.

”I was expecting you,” said the girl. ”Well, if I haven't frightened him!” She laughed so delightfully that I recovered and laughed too.

”Why,” she explained, ”I just knew you'd not stay in there. Which side are you going to b.u.t.ter your bread this evening?”

”You had smelt it?” said I, still cloudy with surprise. ”Yes.

Unquestionably. Very rancid.” She glanced oddly at me, and, with less fellows.h.i.+p in her tone, said, ”I was going to warn you--” when suddenly, down at the corrals, the boys began to shoot at large. ”Oh, dear!” she cried, starting up. ”There's trouble.”

”Not trouble,” I a.s.sured her. ”Too many are firing at once to be in earnest. And you would be safe here.”

”Me? A lady without escort? Well, I should reckon so! Leastways, we are respected where I was raised. I was anxious for the gentlemen ovah yondah. Shawhan, K. C. branch of the Louavull an' Nashvull, is my home.”

The words ”Louisville and Nashville” spoke creamily of Blue-gra.s.s.

”Unescorted all that way!” I exclaimed.

”Isn't it awful?” said she, tilting her head with a laugh, and showing the pistol she carried. ”But we've always been awful in Kentucky. Now I suppose New York would never speak to poor me as it pa.s.sed by?” And she eyed me with capable, good-humored satire.

”Why New York?” I demanded. ”Guess again.”

”Well,” she debated, ”well, cowboy clothes and city language--he's Englis.h.!.+” she burst out; and then she turned suddenly red, and whispered to herself, reprovingly, ”If I'm not acting rude!”

”Oh!” said I, rather familiarly.

”It was, sir; and please to excuse me. If you had started joking so free with me, I'd have been insulted. When I saw you--the hat and everything--I took you--You see I've always been that used to talking to--to folks around!” Her bright face saddened, memories evidently rose before her, and her eyes grew distant.

I wished to say, ”Treat me as 'folks around,'” but this tall country girl had put us on other terms. On discovering I was not ”folks around,”

she had taken refuge in deriding me, but swiftly feeling no solid ground there, she drew a firm, clear woman's line between us. Plainly she was a comrade of men, in her buoyant innocence secure, yet by no means in the dark as to them.

”Yes, unescorted two thousand miles,” she resumed, ”and never as far as twenty from home till last Tuesday. I expect you'll have to be scandalized, for I'd do it right over again to-morrow.”

”You've got me all wrong,” said I. ”I'm not English; I'm not New York.

I am good American, and not bounded by my own farm either. No sectional line, or Mason and Dixon, or Missouri River tattoos me. But you, when you say United States, you mean United Kentucky!”

”Did you ever!” said she, staring at what was Greek to her--as it is to most Americans. ”And so if you had a sister back East, and she and you were all there was of you any more, and she hadn't seen you since--not since you first took to staying out nights, and she started to visit you, you'd not tell her 'Fie for shame'?”

”I'd travel my money's length to meet her!” said I.

A wave of pain crossed her face. ”Nate didn't know,” she said then, lightly. ”You see, Nate's only a boy, and regular thoughtless about writing.”

Ah! So this Nate never wrote, and his sister loved and championed him!